Book Review: "Raised from the Ground" by Jose Saramago

When I first read “Blindness” by Jose Saramago, I first of all fell in love with his writing style. In novels such as “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ”, “Death at Intervals” and even within the book “The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis” - Saramago has displayed his keen eye for detail and his steady hand for descriptions. With “Raised from the Ground”, Saramago explores a family that is, in some ways, like his own and in context, explores an era of rapid social, economical and political change in Portugal. With the onset of the two wars and the entire nation becoming a republic, there is definitely tensions within the structures that some older characters feel when they are on the brink between modernisation and the choice to keep tradition. But, Saramago does not only seek to answer whether these two things can co-exist but whether they will both survive the onset of one of the longest fights in human history: communism. The language with its extremities, the descriptions with their beauty and the cast with their humanity, their consciences and their bewilderment are all interconnected in this world where the next day is pretty much unpredictable as Portugal spins out of control with the rest of Europe. In one of his more daring novels to date, Saramago takes us on a journey to the heart of 20th century Portugal and all the culture that comes with it in the changing times.

Let’s take a look at some quotations that I thought were just absolutely amazing and show the extent of Saramago’s talents in this novel:

“There’s never been any shortage of landscape in the world. Whatever else may be lacking, that’s one thing that has never been in short supply, indeed its sheer abundance can only be explained by some tireless miracle, because the landscape clearly pre-dates man, and despite its long, long existence, it has still not yet expired. That’s probably because it’s constantly changing: at certain times of the year, the land is green, at others yellow, or brown or black. And in certain places it is red, the colour of clay or spilled blood. This, however depends on what has been planted or what has not yet been planted, or what has sprung up unaided and died simply because it reaches its natural end. This is not the case with wheat, which still has some life left in it when it is cut. Nor with the cork oak, which, despite its solemn air, is full of life and cries out when its skin is ripped from it.”

The language of change and of the natural world is something that I have always adored about Saramago. Whether it be the physical natural world like this quotation or the language of natural death in his other works, there is something that haunts you about his descriptions because they seem to have just the right words picked out for just the right moments. Nothing seems overused or cliché or too much. It has a balance between the physical, the metaphorical and the philosophical.

“The rain caught up with them towards the end of the afternoon, when the sun was barely a half-span above the low hills to the right, however, the witches were already combing their hair, for this was their favourite weather. The man reined in the donkey and, to relieve the animal’s load on the slight incline, used his foot to shove a stone under one wheel of the cart. The rain is most unseasonable, whatever can have got into the ruler of the celestial waters. That’s why there’s so much dust on the roads as well as the occasional dried cowpat or lump of horse dung, which no one has bothered to pick up this being too far removed from any inhabited place…”

The physical and philosophical ideas of weather are explored so incredibly that you forget you are reading what is essentially a family saga in social and political upheaval. It becomes a mixture between fate and choice, between fortune and ill fortune. It becomes a battle between keeping your head in the story and the narrative or inhaling all of those wonderful descriptions. But it is also perfectly possible to do both. As it is with each other Saramago novel.